English Literature For Boys and Girls | Page 3

name.
As on and on time went, every year more stories were told and sung and written down.
The first stories which our forefathers told in the days long, long ago, and which were
never written down, are lost forever. Even many of those stories which were written are
lost too, but a few still remain, and from them we can learn much of the life and the
history of the people who lived in our land ten and twelve hundred years ago, or more.
For a long time books were all written by hand. They were very scarce and dear, and only
the wealthy could afford to have them, and few could read them. Even great knights and
nobles could not read, for they spent all their time in fighting and hunting, and had little
time in which to learn. So it came about that the monks who lived a quiet and peaceful
life became the learned men. In the monasteries it was that books were written and copied.
There too they were kept, and the monasteries became not only the schools, but the
libraries of the country.
As a nation grows and changes, its literature grows and changes with it. At first it asks
only for stories, then it asks for history for its own sake, and for poetry for its own sake;

history, I mean, for the knowledge it gives us of the past; poetry for joy in the beautiful
words, and not merely for the stories they tell. Then, as a nation's needs and knowledge
grow, it demands ever more and more books on all kinds of subjects.
And we ourselves grow and change just as a nation does. When we are very young, there
are many books which seem to us dull and stupid. But as we grow older and learn more,
we begin to like more and more kinds of books. We may still love the stories that we
loved as children, but we love others too. And at last, perhaps, there comes a time when
those books which seemed to us most dull and stupid delight us the most.
At first, too, we care only for the story itself. We do not mind very much in what words it
is told so long as it is a story. But later we begin to care very much indeed what words the
story- teller uses, and how he uses them. It is only, perhaps, when we have learned to
hear with our eyes that we know the true joy of books. Yes, hear with our eyes, for it is
joy in the sound of the words that makes our breath come fast, which brings smiles to our
lips or tears to our eyes. Yet we do not need to read the words aloud, the sight of the
black letters on the white page is enough.
In this book I am going to tell you about a few of our greatest story-tellers and their
books. Many of these books you will not care to read for yourselves for a long time to
come. You must be content to be told about them. You must be content to know that
there are rooms in the fairy palace of our Literature into which you cannot enter yet. But
every year, as your knowledge grows, you will find that new keys have been put into
your hands with which you may unlock the doors which are now closed. And with every
door that you unlock, you will become aware of others and still others that are yet shut
fast, until at last you learn with something of pain, that the great palace of our Literature
is so vast that you can never hope to open all the doors even to peep inside.



Chapter II
THE STORY OF THE CATTLE RAID OF COOLEY
OUR earliest literature was history and poetry. Indeed, we might say poetry only, for in
those far-off times history was always poetry, it being only through the songs of the bards
and minstrels that history was known. And when I say history I do not mean history as
we know it. It was then merely the gallant tale of some hero's deeds listened to because it
was a gallant tale.
Now the people who lived in the British Isles long ago were not English. It will be
simplest for us to call them all Celts and to divide them into two families, the Gaels and
the Cymry. The Gaels lived in Ireland and in Scotland, and the Cymry in England and
Wales.
It is to Ireland that we must go for the very beginnings of our Literature, for the Roman
conquest did not touch Ireland, and the English, who later conquered and took possession
of